“He
wasn’t a traitor, you
know,” said the old lady. She was seated on the other side of
the
table from
me, wreathed in blue cigarette smoke, illuminated by shafts of pale
winter
sunlight that came in almost horizontally through the window.
“No
matter what
they say, he wasn’t a traitor. That’s what he told
me
himself. But I’m the only
one left now, the only one who remembers what happened.
Lotty’s
gone, so are
the owners, and that poor family, of course.”

The old lady crossed
herself
when she mentioned the “poor family” and then lit
another
cigarette.

“Well, why
don’t you tell me
about him,” I said. That, after all, was the whole point of
the
oral history
project. That was why the old lady had come to the University on a
cold, clear
winter’s afternoon. To put the record straight and record
events
as those who
had lived at the time saw them. To record them before it was too late.

“Well, of
course, you know I
grew up with him. He was a few years younger than me and lived at the
end of
our street. His father was a policeman too and we all knew he was going
to be
one when he grew up. It was what he always wanted. All of us children
used to
play together, so I knew him quite well when he was young. When I
started
working, I still lived with my parents, so I used to see him then and
when he
became a policeman, he was always coming home to see his mother. So,
you see, I’ve
known him all his life.

“He was the one
that led the
raid when they took that poor family away”, she continued,
crossing herself
again. “Such a shame, with the liberation so close. Not that
we
knew it at the
time, although we could all tell that the end was coming. They rounded
us all
up and took us down to the police station where he interrogated me.
Just him,
on his own.

“I thought I
was done for,
you know. After all, we had been sheltering them since the beginning.
Of
course, I told him that I knew nothing about it. I just worked there, I
said. I
didn’t know what went on. I pleaded ignorance. How could I
know
there was a
family there?

“But of course,
he was no
fool and I knew that. And he knew that I was no fool too. And
you’d have had to
have been a fool not to know something was going on, not know that a
family was
living in hiding. Even if I had had nothing to do with it, I must have
known
and knowing and not telling was just as much a crime during the
occupation.

“When the end
of the
interview came, well, I just couldn’t take it any more. I
thought
I was a dead
woman. A firing squad if I was lucky, or worse still, off to the camps
with the
family. We all knew what went on in those camps, even if most people
pretended
they didn’t. Anyone who lived through that time and says they
didn’t know is a
lair. So I thought a firing squad would at least be quicker.

“Anyway, I let
him have it –
told him what I thought of him. I stood up and thumped the table.
‘Shame on
you!’ I said. ‘You’re nothing but a
traitor!’
After all, I didn’t think I had
anything to lose by it.”

“He
didn’t like that. He
stood up too, fists on the table, leaning over at me. I thought he was
going to
hit me.

“‘Sit
down!’ he shouted
and I
sat down, I can tell you. He was still a young man then, and could be
very
frightening when he wanted to be. But then it seemed to pass and
suddenly I
thought he looked like an old man; tired, drawn, but no longer angry.

“‘A
traitor, am I?’ he
said
with half a smile, sitting down too. ‘Perhaps, but then where
would we be
without traitors? Someone had to keep order at the start of the
occupation.
Maybe the government had capitulated, but a city like this
doesn’t just run
itself. You remember what it was like. It was chaos! What were we
supposed to
do? Run away like the politicians? You know me. I’m a
policeman.
I had a job to
do and I did it. Do you think I had a choice? It was that or be a
coward.

“‘And
besides, would the
alternative have been any better? If we hadn’t been here,
then they
would have taken over things, I
mean, the day-to-day things. Do you think that would have been better?
You know
what they’re like. You know how little they think of us. At
least
we never shot
anyone on the street just because we could.’

“That stopped
me in my
tracks. I’d never thought of it like that before, but I knew
he
was right.
Living through the occupation wasn’t nearly as bad as I
thought
it would be and
looking back, I’m sure our police played no small part in
insulating us from
the worst of it. I can just imagine it: ‘We’ll look
after
our own – you don’t
have to worry about us’ and they didn’t. Generally
we
didn’t make trouble and
were content to get on with our lives. Maybe he was a traitor, but if
he was, then
so were the vast majority of us in those days. We just wanted a quiet
life, but
at least he and his fellow policemen did their duty and they had to put
up with
the scorn of the rest of us for their troubles.

“But that
wasn’t enough for
me. I wasn’t angry any more, not at him, anyway.
‘But what
about the family,’ I
demanded of him. ‘How could you do that, knowing what will
happen
to them?’

“He looked even
older and
more tired than before.

“‘Did
I have a choice? They knew,
you know. I did what I had
to do. If I hadn’t organised the raid, they
would have and we all know where that would have led. You
wouldn’t be sitting
here now, would you? You’d be dead, your friend would be
dead,
the owners too. They wouldn’t
have bothered
you with questions; they’d
have shot you
there
and
then.’

“‘Does
it matter?’ I
asked.
‘I’m going to die anyway!’

“‘No
you’re not.
You’re free
to go. It’s clear you knew nothing.’

“I looked at
him stupidly, slowly
taking in what he had said.

“‘Go
on,’ he said.
‘Go.
Please, before I change my mind.’

“I quickly got
up to go, but
when I reached the door, I had to ask him one more question. There was
something I had to know.

“‘Who
told you they were
there?’

“‘Does
it matter?’

“‘Yes
it does. Someone
betrayed us!’

“‘No
they didn’t,’
he said,
shaking his head. ‘No-one betrayed you. You just
weren’t as
clever as you
thought at hiding your tracks. If it makes you feel any better,
I’ve known for
over a year.’

“‘So
why now?’

“‘I
told you. They
found out. And no, don’t ask me
how, I don’t know. Probably found the same clues I did. They
always were a bit
slow,’ he said with half a smile. ‘Don’t
you see? I
didn’t have a choice. Look,
I’ve done what I can for them and for the rest of you.
You’re all free to go
and I’ve put them in the processing centre. I know it will
only
buy them a week
and then it will be the camps for them, but I can’t do any
more
than that.
Please, go now.’

“And so I went,
without
another word. And you know what? I never even bothered to thank him.
Not then,
not since. So, don’t call him a traitor.”

And then the old lady
started
crying.

--------------------------------------------------------

The following day, after
I’d
typed up the interview, I checked the archives. The policeman had been
arrested
shortly after the liberation and tried for war crimes. He was found
guilty and
executed by firing squad.